


A Reckless Care

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Missing scene in s3 finale, Season 3, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:22:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: Based on a tumblr prompt: "Who cares? Who cares? I care!" This is a missing scene I imagine would have taken place in the season 3 finale where Quentin and Eliot talk about Quentin's decision to become the new jailer at Castle Blackspire. It's canon compliant, so nothing here is changing the outcome. Just a little angsty/sweet moment between the two.





	A Reckless Care

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks peachesnplumsmotherfucker for the prompt!

They’d just gone over the plan to end the quest to get back magic. The quest had been the sole purpose of all of their lives for the last long, difficult year since they’d killed Ember and Umber and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. So, Eliot should have been thrilled.

Except he wasn’t.

Because the plan was for Quentin to sacrifice himself as the new jailer for Castle Blackspire.

No one had received the idea particularly well, but they’d all just gritted their teeth and accepted Quentin’s stubborn insistence that it was what had to be done. Well, Alice had immediately fucked off to God knows where, which was a whole problem in and of itself. The rest of them, however, had gone into planning the logistics of it all. The one exception to that was Eliot, who was pacing in his old bedroom at the Cottage. 

He couldn’t be a part of it. He knew he ultimately had no choice other than to go along to the castle because this was magic they were talking about. He and Margo had a kingdom to run, Brakebills was closing, and the whole magical world was kind of counting on them to finish this quest they’d set out on. When he weighed all of that against Quentin’s life though… his priorities were maybe a little skewed, but it was what it was. He couldn’t help Quentin plan his suicide mission.

A quiet knock on his door startled him. He paused mid-step and rolled his eyes at whoever thought he’d want to talk right now. He let his silence be his answer as he went back to pacing across the path he was wearing in the carpet. 

They knocked again.

“No one’s home,” he said to the door.

It was quiet for a moment, and he could hear a floorboard creak as someone shuffled outside. Not away from the door, more like they were taking a tentative step forward.

“El, it’s me.”

Quentin. Goddamnit. Eliot could have told anyone else to fuck off, and maybe he still should have because he was so mad at Quentin he could barely see straight. He knew he wouldn’t though, so he sighed heavily and walked over to the door.

When he opened it, Quentin was standing a few inches away and looking up at him hopefully.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Having already resigned himself, Eliot stepped aside and motioned for him to come in. He shut the door behind Quentin and turned around to find him just standing in the middle of his room wringing his hands. Eliot stepped around him to sit on the edge of his bed. Quentin didn’t move to sit down next to him, choosing instead to remain where he was and look around the room, everywhere except at Eliot.

Eliot didn’t push him. He knew Quentin when he got like this, and he’d spit it out when he was ready. So, he sat and watched him as he agonized over whatever was going on in his head for a few seconds.

“So,” Quentin started, “I know you’re like, pissed at me or whatever.”

Eliot scoffed and said, “That’s a bit of an oversimplification.”

Quentin shot him a pleading look, and it just tore right at his frayed heart strings. 

He’d been doing his best to lock it all away since they’d gotten back from the mosaic. He’d had his chance to acknowledge those feelings and let them mean something, and he’d passed it up. It just wasn’t realistic, or so he’d told himself. He’d made the choice and had to live with it, so he’d locked all things Quentin-shaped into a box and thrown away the key. That’s why it was really unfair that one look from the man himself could break the lock and send it all flooding through him again.

“I’m not asking you to understand,” Quentin said, his brow furrowing as he looked down at the floor. He said, “I’m just asking you to support my decision because we’ve all had to do hard things on this quest, and this is just another one of those hard things.”

Because he was still angry, Eliot asked, “Would it stop you if I didn’t support your decision?”

Quentin exhaled heavily and looked up at him.

“No,” he answered, “but I’d prefer to not live the next few centuries or whatever knowing that you hate me.”

“Well, tough shit,” Eliot snapped, “because I’m never agreeing to this.”

“That’s not fair,” Quentin said.

“Oh, I’m not being fair?” Eliot asked. 

He rose from the edge of his bed so that he could stand in front of Quentin. Quentin didn’t step away as Eliot looked down at him. He stood strong, his shoulders pushed back, like he’d prepared himself for exactly this scenario. He probably had, to be fair. They knew each other too well for it to have gone any other way.

Eliot continued, “You’re talking about being locked in a prison with a literal monster, Q! This isn’t just some quest where we have to put up with some whimsical bullshit then go back to business as usual. This is the rest of your _life_ we’re talking about.”

Quentin threw his hands into the air and shook his head.

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked. “This is about a lot more than me or any of us though. Who cares about my life in the grand scheme of magic being restored for the entire universe? It’s a pretty small price to pay.”

“Who cares?” Eliot asked. He took a step forward towards Quentin as he bit back the rising panic in his throat. “Who cares? _I_ care!”

Maybe Eliot didn’t have the right to care anymore after he’d rejected him but fuck it if he didn’t. 

“El,” Quentin said, his voice low and soft.

Eliot gingerly reached out and placed his hand on the junction of Quentin’s shoulder and his neck. He let it linger there. In another life, he would have brought it up to cup his face or dig his fingers in his long, soft hair. This wasn’t that life though. So he left it there as he tightened his grip.

“Q,” he said in a quieter voice. Quentin gave him stubborn look like he was ready to keep arguing, and Eliot pressed on, “I know this is going to sound rich coming from me, but your life is so much more than just a means to an end.”

Quentin’s eyes softened as their gazes met. Eliot could practically feel the anxiety rolling off of him as his shoulders slumped under his hand. 

“What choice do we have?” he asked. “I made Ora a promise in exchange for helping us, and this is our one shot to fix everything. I have to do this.”

Eliot wanted to point out that Quentin was the one who told him that destiny was bullshit. They always had a choice.

He searched his deep brown eyes as if they might somehow hold the answer to all of this. Quentin may have fooled the rest of their friends, but he wasn’t fooling Eliot or himself. After fifty years, that just wasn’t a thing he could get away with. So Eliot could see how scared he was. He could see how resolute he was too. Eliot believed him when he said he couldn’t talk him out of it, and that left him with a cold, heavy feeling in his chest.

“I’m never going to support this decision,” Eliot said. Quentin gave him that pleading look again, and it took everything in him not to look away. He continued, “but Q, I could never hate you. You have to know that.”

Quentin fixed him with a discerning look. Then after a few seconds, he nodded before lunging forward to wrap his arms around Eliot’s waist and rest his head in that space right against his chest where he’d always fit so perfectly. Eliot swayed backwards a bit before steadying himself. He brought his arms up to wrap them around Quentin’s shoulders and pull him even closer until they were pressed as tightly together as they could be. Carefully, he leaned his head down to press his lips against the top of Quentin’s hair. He breathed in the scent of him as he slid one hand up to rest it against the back of his head and hold him there. He felt more than heard Quentin let out a shuddering breath against him, and he closed his eyes.

They lingered there pressed against each other for just a moment too long for it to be mistaken for casual before Quentin pulled away. He set his shoulders back again as the determined look he’d worn earlier etched itself back onto his face.

“Uh, I guess I should go back downstairs,” he said.

“Guess so,” Eliot agreed.

Quentin gave him a final half hearted smile before turning to leave the room. He’d barely closed the door before Eliot crumbled. He brought his hands up to his face and breathed in as he pressed his fingers against his eyes so hard he could see stars. He dragged them down his face, his eyes still pressed tightly shut. Then he heard someone pushing his door open again without bothering to knock.

When he opened his eyes, Margo was standing in front of him. She pushed the door closed and marched right up to him without having said a word yet. He raised an eyebrow as he watched her reach inside her jacket and pull out… a gun. Not just any gun though.

“Is that?” he asked.

She nodded, a small smile playing on her lips.

“Fuck yeah, it is,” she said.

Eliot almost laughed in pure relief as he reached out a hand to take the gun from her. The gun that only had one bullet, designed specifically to kill a god. It felt heavy and important in his hands.

“We’re going to kill that monster, Eliot,” she said, fixing him with a determined look, “because Q isn’t spending his life being a chew toy for whatever the hell kind of dickhead that’s waiting for us in that castle.”

Eliot had quite possibly never loved her more than he did in that moment. Where his affection for Margo was concerned, that was saying a hell of a lot.

All he could do was nod at her in response as a smile crept its way onto his face. She grinned back at him before leaving the room again and leaving Eliot to work out a plan of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and appreciated! Find me on tumblr at folie-a-hayley. :)


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